How do you document torture? UB students, health care providers, social workers and lawyers will learn how

Experts at UB and partner organizations will lead program in conducting forensic evaluations on those seeking asylum in the U.S.

Kim Griswold, MD, associate professor in the departments of Family Medicine and Psychiatry

BUFFALO, N.Y. – For most Americans, the concept of torture
is, thankfully, truly foreign. But for immigrants and refugees,
some of whom are seeking asylum in Buffalo, torture has been all
too real.

On Saturday, Oct. 21, the Human Rights Initiative, a student
group based at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical
Sciences at the University at Buffalo, is holding “Forensic
Evaluation Training for Asylum Seekers.”

When: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Butler Auditorium, Farber Hall
on the University at Buffalo South Campus.

Where: Butler Auditorium, Farber Hall on the UB South
Campus.

The training is being held in conjunction with the group’s
partners at the WNY Center for Survivors of Torture, a
collaboration of Jewish Family Service of Buffalo and Erie County,
Journey’s End Refugee Services and the UB Department of
Family Medicine.

The free, daylong session will train physicians and other health
care providers in how to perform physical, gynecological and
psychological forensic evaluations for individuals who have been
tortured or persecuted in their native countries and are now
seeking asylum in the United States.

Lawyers, social workers and students are also encouraged to
attend because they can work as scribes, taking detailed notes from
interviews with asylum seekers and learning to draft legal
affidavits to document the findings.

The session will be led by local experts who have been trained
by Physicians for Human Rights.

“We have a backlog of asylum seekers who are awaiting
forensic evaluations,” said Kim Griswold, MD, associate
professor in the departments of Family Medicine and Psychiatry in
the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB, who is
leading the training session.

“These evaluations can be lifesaving for our
clients,” she continued, “because individuals are more
likely to be granted asylum in the United States with documentation
of the physical or psychological evidence of the torture they
experienced.”

Griswold added that while the primary goal is to aid the asylum
seekers, the UB medical students involved with the Human Rights
Initiative are getting a tremendous benefit, too.

“The students are absolutely amazing,” said
Griswold. “They have taken to this work because they want to
right human wrongs. They are working with these individuals,
learning to listen to them and to ask delicate, probing questions.
The students also support each other because it is important that
they not be traumatized vicariously. Some of our students are still
doing this work in residency, so this is laying the
groundwork.”

Continuing medical education credits will be provided. Coffee
and lunch will also be provided.